Calling a shell built-in isn't really fair -- you should at least compare to /bin/echo (on my system the relevant times are [edit: 0.001s] for echo, 0.007+0.004=0.011 for python -S -c "print 'hello'". Without dropping site-packages (without the -S) python jumps to 0.014+0.012=0.026 -- marginally above 200 ms which I suppose is a perceptible difference between instant, and not-quite-instant).
Sadly, both pypy and python3 are slower than python2.7. Also worth nothing that the sys time fluctates for me -- in other words when it is > 0.00s it doesn't appear to have anything to do with the command run.
Sadly, both pypy and python3 are slower than python2.7. Also worth nothing that the sys time fluctates for me -- in other words when it is > 0.00s it doesn't appear to have anything to do with the command run.